Honest and Unmerciful Music Reviews

Wolf Alice – “My Love Is Cool” Album Review

Desperately trying to relive the glory days of post 21st century indie rock, Wolf Alice’s debut album does just this, but without any of the innovation or song-writing talent. Though it packs a sonic punch, My Love Is Cool simply doesn’t have the musical power behind it to cause any meaningful damage to the rock template.

Tracks like Bros and Lisbon seem energetic; the meeting of female and male vocals is a charming effect, but the tracks pull off the incredible feat of being both bottomless and shallow. There’s very little in the way of grit or excitement, which is a shame given that lead singer Ellie could pull it off, as evidenced by the terrifying cackle at the end of You’re A Germ, by far and away the best track. Even the song titles themselves are screamingly safe, though perhaps I’m missing the hilarious irony of a heavy rock song called Fluffy.

Even so, the biggest failing of this album is its lack of imagination. Despite the spacious, reverb soaked production and filthy guitar tones, it feels utterly sterile, and this isn’t helped by the lacklustre writing and copy-paste approach to everything that made Garbage exciting in the 90s. By the time you reach the end, and you realise that after The Wonderwhy there’s a (sigh) hidden track, there’s really no reason to revisit the full album except for a few choice tracks, namely You’re A Germ, Freazy and Fluffy. Artists, for goodness sake, stop putting hidden tracks on your albums, it’s 2015, nobody cares, and this goes for everyone. If a track isn’t good enough to inhabit the main body of your album, don’t just hide it at the end; if nothing else it means reviewers have to stick around for your precious self-indulgent nonsense.

So it’s with a heavy heart that I have to condemn this album as just plain boring. I say this because I really wanted to like this LP, I had hoped it might be the kick up the ass indie rock needed to get exciting again, a more synthy Is This It, if you will. However, nothing memorable is brought to the table. As far as I’m concerned, Wolf Alice are just another bland-ie rock band hyped ridiculously by the press in an effort to support the fleeting pop-rock revival going on in mainstream music today.